The Unity of RealityMichael vonBruckGod, God-Experience, and meditation in the Hindu-Christian dialogue

1

"It could be said that Jesus' experience both contains advaitic [non-dualistic] experience and proceeds towards a goal. It reaches its climax in the union of a personal encounter: i.e., it is in a perpetual dynamic of becoming one."

2

"The eternal is IN the temporal and the temporal IN the eternal."

3

"God is relationship within the moments of one movement which constitutes his being."

4

"Each partner is a light for the other and enables him/her to see better the depths of his/her own tradition. The religion of the partner is like a sounding board in which one's own terms and symbols acquire new over- or undertones."

5

"Christ is always already present, for he is the light that enlightens every person coming into the world (John 1:9)."

6

"Intuitive knowledge of the One is the pinnacle of spiritual fulfillment."

7

"It is not so much a question of finding in the partner's position analogous terms for one's own system. Rather, we try to clarify equivalent functions of our own practices, symbols and terms, in order to recognize, adapt, and fulfill the existential MEANING of religious reality which comes to light in the encounter."

8

"The personal center of the individual is essentially the Self (atman), which is beyond the particularities of physical-psychic-mental life or of any changeable things or of change as such."

9

"Insofar as humans become aware of being and recognize atman they realize not only their own identity -…but they also integrate the polarity of difference and identity in the participatory act of lovingly becoming one."

10

"Our 'own' consciousness is like a light which is switched on in the meeting with another. What is new in today's interreligious situation could be described as a worldwide and conscious application of this principle to interreligious dialogue, with the goal of cooperation in all areas of life."

11

"Freedom is the awareness of the basis of life and life lived in rhythm with this basis."

12

"Ethics has its basis not in a forever grounded ought, but in a real transformation, which includes being aware of the interdependence of all being."

13

"God is continuously realizing himself in the whole of creation."

14

"Unifying love fully reaches its goal in a suprahistorical being-with and being-in that involves both God and humans. For God is so fully present to and in all that no other source of light is needed to enable us to live and be enlightened (Rev. 22:5)."

15

"Everything that exists, exists in God whose life it shares."

16

"God is the human person's true being."

17

"Only when we can treat others….as a thou and as a source for our self-understanding is true brotherhood/sisterhood possible between all peoples."

18

"Each person's destiny is truly integrated into a final beyond-individual and transpersonal connectedness of the one reality."

19

"Perfection is uninterrupted resonance in God."

20

"The love of God is the unity of reality….God is love, and therefore the one who dwells in love knows that God is in him and he in God (1 John 4:9ff.)."

21

"God is the unity of all moments of time….God is the absolute now."

22

"Through the unifying power of love of the Spirit, creation reaches completion; i.e., it attains its essence."

23

"The Son is being, realized. Through him everything exists (Romans 11:36; 1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16). This statement implies a temporal eternity or eternal temporality, i.e., tempiternity, in the Son. He is the realization of the Father and therefore the visibility (John 14:9) or the being of the Father. He manifests God's perfect transcendence as immanent and through his being points to transcendence. As immanent transcendence he is being's eternal transcending being in the trinitarian self-realization of God."

24

"On the grounds of a basic unity or karmic connectedness of all things, nothing can be lost, nothing can be outside."

25

"Everything is grounded in consciousness of the whole. The whole is always there and awaits our receptivity."